Got in early to Climb Bloody Mt on Sunday. Had some extra time so bagged this one. Went up trail to the Bloody-Laurel saddle then followed the ridgeline up (more or less) Huge pile of scree and talus!! No register/or box at summit

This was a day trip from Las Vegas (6AM--midnight including drive time). I was the weak link of the group of 3 and was so slow ascending that we descended after reaching the ridge at 11,050 ft. (GPS reading) north of the peak.

An unusual and highly worthwhile scramble--part canyoneering, part climbing! We didn't use the rope, but one or two of the friction slabs higher up were steep enough that once I'd started up them I began to think that maybe I should at least have changed from my boots into my rock shoes...

I wanted to do this route as soon as I read Croft's description. In early season, it had snow much later than I expected. Then I broke my foot and had to take 7 weeks off. Last weekend, the weather looked awful, so I found something else to climb (Mt. Goode).

Today, it finally came together. I forgot my maps and route descriptions, so I had to wing it. I made a major screw-up on the approach, but the actual climb went very well: 2:15 from the beginning of the rock climbing to the summit. The upper several hundred feet of the gully looked like mostly loose scree. I followed a rib that looked a little more difficult on slightly better rock and ended up maybe 200 feet to the right of the summit. The variation was class 2 and 3, and I don't regret doing it.

Scrambled the route in approach shoes. Easy, fun, and more climbing than I expected. Summit was great. Beautiful views and very still. Descending the ridge was beastly hot, and then I missed the best descent gully. Took about 7.5 hours, round trip.

Penelope May and I climbed the (IN) famous NE Gully of Laurel Mountain based on Peter Croft's comments in his book "The Good, The Great and The Awesome".

The line is pretty easy to follow as many old, classic lines go. The rock is only good in the very center of the drainage, if you move away from it just a few feet, you are in a choss. But the route is almost 3,000 feet long and most of it at 4th and easy 5th class. We did not use rope and it took us about 6 hours to approach the climb and climb the route. We were slowed on the descent by some confusing elevation points that conflicted with map and written info and it took us 3 hours to get back to Convict Lake for a RT of 9 hours.

I would not reccommend this as something great to do, but it is a long route in a great visual setting. The slate type of rock and the coloring of the faces makes the Mt. Morrison area very pretty.

There’s nothing like the dirtpile rock of our route up Laurel Mtn to make one worship Sierra granite. Washed in the light of the setting sun, beautiful views of Convict Lake and the surrounding peaks helped distract me from my growing concern about sleeping on a tiny ledge (only big enough for one). Happily, D and I finished climbing just before dark. The adventure continued as we still had hours of route finding ahead of us as we hiked down the back side in the dark. An exhausting and fantastic trip.